I have faced rejection many times in my life. So much so, that I can recall each and every one of them.

Nevertheless, I have realised that rejection is a boon. Those who face rejection have a stronger sense of confidence and desensitized feeling towards future rejections. I feel so, I consider rejection as a close friend, who helps me move towards more opportunities than I would have moved towards if I had not faced a single rejection.

In a TED talk I recently saw, I heard Jia Jiang talk about a 100 day rejection therapy process (I will mention the link to the site at the end). He talked about how, for 100 days he went out seeking rejections in different places for different things from different people. He said that this training helped desensitize him towards the feeling of being rejected, he made his body numb to the fear of rejection.

There are inspirational talks and psychological articles out on the internet, but there isn’t a way to get over the feeling of rejection or of using rejection in a very positive way (if there is, please link it down).

This may be just the thing you’ve been searching for, if you have not found anything yet.

We both (Jia Jiang and I) have come to a similar conclusion with how to overcome/ use rejection to be a better and stronger person.

Rejection is part of life you need to accept.

It is hard but it is true. The thing with rejection is that, the more you run away from it, the more you will find it and you’ll be more afraid of it.

The only way to fight the fear of rejection is- to go find it and face it head on.

Because what you learn from facing rejection is gold.

There are different stages of facing rejection. The first is when you run away the moment you feel that rejection is coming your way. Then the next time you get stronger and you stand your ground. Then you learn things, you learn why you were rejected, what you could have done to turn the no into a yes, what you can say to get a yes next time, and the list goes on.

When you face rejection, you are also given the opportunity to question that person. That person then gives you an answer which will blow your mind.

The three line conversation that I started with was not the complete conversation, it goes on like this.

“Thank you, if you don’t mind me asking. What could I have done to have gotten a Yes?” I went on to ask.

“When you raised your pitch, there wasn’t the smoothness we were looking for. Work on that and come in for the next season.” they answered.

See? That is how I got to know where I was lacking and how I could improve myself. And this is just one situation, in one of the 100 days, Jia went to a Starbucks and asked them if he could be a greeter for them for an hour. The manager did not give him a good look, then Jia said “is it weird?” and the manager answered “yes it is.”

But after a bit of talk the manager let him do it. So, Jia learned that if you put the doubts of the person you’re talking to, in front of him, that person will trust you more and will even give you the approval you want. Because the person will stop seeing you as crazy and will start seeing you as a sensible person.

These are just two things of many that can be learnt if you are willing to face rejection.

Even the most influential people faced initial rejection and sometimes even violent rejections.

Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and many others.

If you face rejection for doing the right thing, you’ll be in the group of one of the most influential people.

You celebrity!

Rejection is good, and to overcome it you have to face it. If you don’t face it, you’ll always be under it. And rejection is the best teacher, learn from it.

Finally to end it, I would like to use a quote I found somewhere with no name on it.